Slashdot Mirror
Yet Another Look at CD Sales
citizenkeller writes "Dan Bricklin, of VisiCalc fame, has published a very interesting essay on "CD sales, downloading, and burning". In his own words: 'Given the slight dip in CD sales despite so many reasons for there to be a much larger drop, it seems that the effect of downloading, burning, and sharing is one of the few bright lights helping the music industry with their most loyal customers. Perhaps the real reason for some of the drop in sales was the shutdown of Napster and other crackdowns by the music industry.'"
They also said the bad economy was a factor, and said specifically they didn't believe piracy to be having any significant effect.
...We all stop sponsoring terrorism by not bying music which is under the control of RIAA?
Buy indie music from labels who have nothing to do with the helldemons. Check out text file I have attached below.
List of Record Labels that feed RIAA
Everytime you buy a CD that's on that record label listed, you directly finance the people who turn around and take away your fair use rights and civil liberties.
Think about that for a while. As for the Dropping CD Sales, all I have to say is:
The laptop sales are also dropping. I guess it could be attributed to the widespread online hardware piracy via Lapster
(disclaimer: this is a shameless plug for a website, but I am a satisfied customer)
Convenient way to buy independent CDs, without giving any of your money to the RIAA: CD Baby
They even let you pass a message to the artist for every CD purchased. Plus I love the line on the "about" page: "No Microsoft products were used in the creation of this website."
Remain calm! All is well!
What is your point? The industry's claim for years has been that piracy has been *THE* major reason for dropping sales, a viewpoint which has been fairly impressivly argued against. Of course there are more than just one or two reasons for the downturn, but clearly the major one is the economy, followed closely by the thin-gruel-like consistency of most pop music today.
Arguing that since the economy cannot be the *ONLY* reason it is somehow less valid to proclaim it as such than the industry's fallacious attacks on internet piracy is a farce.
I'm sure that one or two deeply religious parents out there have forbidden their children from buying Marilyn Manson albums - does that then also mean that we can claim that "Religion is *THE* reason for the downturn in music sales", as the record industry would have if it chose to exercise a vendetta against religion next?
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
I still think the ol'
"The VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone." quote from our friend Jack Valenti shows how in touch these people are with reality.
The amazing thing is that they continue to refuse to admit that they might have been wrong about anything.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
First, the most important hard number that matters: 13%. This is the percentage by which record sales (as measured by SoundScan) are down this year over the same time last year. That's a HUNK. Study after study has failed to demonstrate that downloading either is or is not responsible for this dip. It ain't the only thing, IMHO.
Among other things, this bust comes at the end of a decades-long boom period for the record industry, and like so many other businesses, labels have spent the last few years riding a bubble. Unsurprisingly, the bubble has burst. We all know that selling records is a low-margin business that usually loses money (SERIOUSLY. NOT KIDDING.). If a larger label makes a killing it is probably on a runaway hit that sells hundreds of thousands, or millions, not ten thousand or less like the vast majority of releases do. Most labels lose money most of the time, and the ones that steadily make money generally do so on a scale that doesn't even register on the radar of the major-label wonks.
So what do we have? We have: four major labels, owned by conglomerates who wish to use the Beatles/Dylan/Zeppelin/Stooges/Clash catalogs to cross-promote their products, and to finance other ventures. These conglomerates have little patience or interest in sinking money into new artists who will lose money for years at a time.
We have Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. selling discs for LESS than WHOLESALE, to the point where small record stores are buying their stock on the sly FROM THESE STORES instead of from the labels themselves.
We have an environment where, in the last year, TWO of the largest distributors have gone out of business (That's like WB Films and Paramount going tits-up), and TWO of the largest retailers-- Virgin and the Musicland family of stores.
We have radio AND touring in the hands of basically ONE company.
We have declining fan interest in the lastest dead horse trotted out by U2, Britney Spears, String, and the N'Backstreet Boys.
All this adds up, not to downloading killing the industry, but the industry starting to feel the effects of too many boardroom ultimatums and short-term decisions.
13% of sales have gone PFFT. It's a market correction, and a lamentable one, that the conglomerates that own the majors have precipitated themselves. Janis Ian is right-- the future is with people selling their own records out of the backs of cars, and this just might be the real start of that.